January
2007
The Body Remembers (click here to leave comments)
I found a wonderful post on the Green Parenting blog.
The author shares a very personal story about a recurring yeast infection caused by birth control pills, that made sex very painful. After two years she was able to get help with the pain - even though the yeast infections had stopped long before.
She says that her body remembered the pain of sex from when she had yeast infections. (It's a wonderful story, read it here, lots of information that needs to be shared, and I learned a lot.)
Hmmm….
Yep, this is the cellular memory I talk about. When babies have memories from conception on, it isn't in their intellectual memory - it's in their bodies. And what is stored is all information - physical as well as emotional, since emotions create chemical changes in the body, and get absorbed by the embryo/fetus/baby.
It's why, if for example, upon discovery of being pregnant a woman is upset, ashamed, or angry, those feelings may get stored in the cells of a new being, and as they divide, they help create the entire body - and the baby then has the memory or sense of "I don't belong here" or "I am not wanted" or "I make people mad," which can manifest in long term daily life as shyness, distress at going anywhere new, distress at being the center of attention…of course this isn't the only reason for these feelings, but I have seen after working with the pain some people have felt when they were "discovered" those other fears and negative experiences shift and dissapate quite profoundly.
Yes, our bodies hold onto painful experiences and emotions, and remembers them. And this is true as soon as we have a body to store the information. Learning to identify what somatic memory is being held, and where, can allow us to release them so we aren't living our lives avoiding the emotional or physical pain - consciously or unconciously.
Good news, we also store the GOOD feelings and experiences!
The is a very interesting, and scary post. My wife and I just had a baby girl 12-25-06 and when we found out she was pregnant, our first emotion was sadness and anger. We were not trying to have another baby yet since our first born was only 1 year old. The negative feelings did not last throughout the pregnancy as we eventaully accepted the fact that we were having a beautiful baby girl but it’s scary that the negative impulse feelings may resonate in her cells.
[...] My wife and I tried for a baby for several years. 3 ectopics and 1 miscarriage later, we had our baby boy, Hugh. Dominique, my wife, was on an intense prochieve regiment inorder to concieve and had to keep it up for 3 months after conception. We were overjoyed and so happy when little Hugh came along. 7 months after Hugh’s birth, we became pregnant again. No prochieve, no supplements, it was an all natural suprise. Well, we did not have the same joy he had for Hugh’s conception at first. Hugh was only 7 months old and we thought he would get shorted on the amount of love we had to offer. Dominique did not shed all the baby weight and was feeling sad and depressed at the thought of going though it all again so soon. There is a great post on the whatyourbabyknows blog about babies remembering emotions on the cellular level. It describes how these memories can present themselves as shyness and other traits later on in life. After finding out our new baby was to be a girl, our feelings of sadness slowly diminished and a joyous feeling eventaully overcame us. Haylee is now 6 weeks and not only does she get the second rate treatment, (Hugh’s old onezees, Hugh’s old bathtub, Hugh’s old anything and everything (except clothes)), she was born on Dec 25. While I enjoy my beautiful christmas gift, I can’t help but think about all the christmas gifts that will serve as her birthday gift and all the birthday gifts that will serve as christmas gifts. I’m going to have to work hard to seperate the two and show her with enough love for both days. Second born gets the shaft. I have my work cut out for me. Posted by grim on February 5th, 2007 | Filed in Uncategorized | [...]
Garfield,
I understand how reading something like that can be scary!
Also, it’s true…but not unresolveable. If you can talk to your baby - really tell her the honest story of how it was for you, why, and how you feel now, and apologize, you give her the gift of owning “your issues” and having it not be about her…you allow space for her to discharge those stored emotions…empathize with no guilt about how she might feel (”Yeah, it was like that for you…I get how you feel…you can tell me all about it…”) and then reassure her that you feel differently now.